The Philippine Christmas Season In the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Facing families concerned about relatives verging on homelessness during the COVID lockdown, a Malacañang official emphasized that these locally stranded individuals (LSIs) will be able to return to their provinces by Christmastime. Since March, over 130,000 LSIs, bereft of employment due to the pandemic, have been sent back to their home provinces through the Hatid Tulong initiative. At the time of writing, only about 500 LSIs are left to be transported.

.

Contrary to the “normal” beginnings of the Philippine Christmas season in September (dubbed “longest Christmas season in the world” by the Guinness Book of World Records), the COVID-19 pandemic has put Christmas at a slow start for many Filipinos. The Extended Community Quarantine (ECQ) has stifled small and medium-sized businesses that provide goods and services specific to the holiday seasons, such as the artisans who make parol [elaborate star-shaped lanterns represent the Star of Bethlehem] and other Christmas decorations. Demand is down and anxieties are high; as an article from the Philppine Inquirer remarks, “For the over three million people who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, the last thing on their mind is buying a wind-up Santa climbing up and down a chain rope.” And despite the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) stressing that Christmas products will not experience a price hike because of this, the disruptions that the pandemic is causing are having very real effects on Christmas traditions–as seen from the plight of the LSIs.

.

Filipinos across the country are expecting some wide changes to what was once a near-permanent Christmas tradition. Churches are likely to continue being closed even for the simbang gabi (lit. night mass), a series of daily masses during the 9 nights before Christmas; this also means another infliction on the food vendors that sell Christmas-themed snacks outside the church, such as bibingka and puto bumbong. In adapting to the new ECQ environment, online resellers on Facebook are becoming more popular, with some of the resellers even negotiating with customers in real time through a livestream. As for the tradition of visiting extended family for the children to ask for an aguinaldo (a Christmas “bonus” of money given to children), medical experts are discouraging large communal activities. They are also prescribing that any future Christmas gatherings are not to have alcohol nor videoke.

.

This situation has reminded me of how much less visible Christmas is as a focal point in Philippine studies circles. The Filipino tradition of the pasyon, for example, has been widely talked about in academia due to Rey Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution (and partly explored in the the Canella reading for this class), but I believe that the rich Christmas traditions in the Philippines deserve at least equal consideration in academic circles. Like the pasyon, it is also an interesting amalgamation of the indigenous and the colonial, but the more vulgar nature of Christmas means that various traditions have been more influenced by “modernity”–fake Christmas elms, holiday consumerism, etc. One could even say that the pandemic is a continuation of the “modernity” that continues to influence the lives of Filipinos both rural and urban, and likewise the Filipinos’ negotiation with modernity rages on.

.

Photo: Cristina Menina, The Straits Times